Wind type musical instrument

ABSTRACT

A recorder whose mouth piece and body are double-walled and made of inner and outer concentric parts of cellular plastic adhesively bonded to each other or spaced radially to bound a sealed cavity. The outer wall parts may consist of plastic foamed to a greater bulk density than the inner parts for a softer tone.

[451 Apr. 23, 1974 United States Patent [1 1 Oouchi 4] WIND TYPE MUSICALINSTRUMENT [75] Inventor:

Takashi Oouchi, Hamamatsu, Japan .K C e o lull-ll [73] Assignee: NipponGakki Seizo-Kabushiki Kaisha, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan [22] Filed: May24, 1972 Primary Examiner-Richard B. Wilkinson Assistant Examiner-JohnF. Gonzales [21] Appl. No.: 256,360

Attorney, Agent, or Firm-J- lans Berman [30] Foreign ApplicationPriority Data ABSTRACT June2l,197l .lapan............. 46-44685 June 21,I971 Japan.........

A recorder whose mouth piece and body are doublewalled and made of innerand outer concentric parts of cellular plastic adhesively bonded to eachother or spaced radially to bound a sealed cavity. The outer wall partsmay consist of plastic foamed to a greater bulk density than the innerparts for a softer tone.

UNITED STATES PATENTS 1/1970 Mills........

84/384 7 Claims, 2 Drawing Figures BIN WIND TYPE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT Thepresent invention relates to musical instruments, and particularly towind instruments.

Wind instruments are mass-produced from plastics. It is difficult toprovide the molded plastic instruments with perfect inner and outersurfaces. When the molding technique is chosen to produce the smoothinner surface needed for good tone quality, the appearance of the outersurfaces leaves something to be desired, and vice versa.

It is an important object of this invention to provide an improvedplastic wind instrument which combines good external appearance with thesmooth inner surfaces required for good tone quality.

The plastic wind instrument of this invention has a mouthpiece and bodyeach consisting of inner and outer coaxial wall parts which are eitherclosely fitted or radially spaced apart. The inner parts have the smoothinner surfaces required for tone quality, and the outer parts have anexposed outer surface satisfying appearance requirements. Defects, ifany, in the outer surface of the inner parts and the inner surface ofthe outer parts are immaterial.

ln molding the inner parts, the inner surfaces are cooled from themolding temperature so quickly that depressions in the surface areavoided, and the outer surfaces of the outer wall parts are similarlycooled for the same purpose.

Other features and advantages of the wind instrument of this inventionwill become apparent from the following description of preferredembodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 shows a plastic recorder of the invention in axial section; and

FIG. 2 similarly shows another recorder of the invention. 1

The invention will be described with reference to recorders, but it willbe understood that the invention is equally applicable to other windinstruments, such as fifes, oboes, clarinets, Japanese flutes, and organpipes.

The recorder illustrated in FIG. 1 consists of three fixedly connected,longitudinal or axial main sections, namely a mouthpiece 10, a body 12,and a bell 14. The mouthpiece consists of a terminal subsection 16 and agenerally cylindrically tubular section 18 joined endto-end tothesubsection 16. The subsection 16 is formed with an axial wind passage 20having an air inlet orifice20a and an outlet orifice 20b. The axial bore22 of the subsection 18 communicates with the orifice 20b and has aradial opening 24 near the orifice. A partition portion 26 of thesubsection 18 bounds the opening 24 and is slanted towardthe orifice20b. Axial bores 28, 30 in the body 12 and the axially open bell 14communicate with the bore 22 of the subsection 18 in axial alignment.Radial air holes 32 axially spaced in the body 12 and the bell 14 areopened and closed by the player's fingertips during use of theinstrument.

The player blows a stream of air through the wind passage 20 against aleading edge of the partition 26 so that the air partly passes throughthe aligned axial bores 22, 28, 30, and is partly discharged through theopening 24.

Each of the sections and subsections of the recorder has coaxial innerand outer tubular parts which are axially approximately coextensive andradially bonded to each other in conforming engagement. The terminalsubsection 16 of the mouthpiece 10 thus has outer and inner wall parts16a, 16b. The passage 20 extends over most of its length in the innerpart 16a, but its orifice 20a is formed in a tip portion of the outerpart 16b. The subsection 18, body 12, and bell 14 essentially consist ofinner, generally cylindrical wall parts 180, 12a, 14a, and outer wallparts 18b, 12b, 14b. The subsection 18 has an axial, annular flangereceived in an annular groove formed between the wall parts 16a, 16b ofthe terminal mouthpiece subsection 16. The inner wall parts 12a, 14a ofthe body 12 and bell 14 are connected to each other and to thesubsection 18 by bell-andspigot connections. Terminal, radial, integralflanges 18c, on the inner wall parts 18a, 12a axially separate the outerwall parts 18b, 12b and 12b, 14b respectively. A radial, integral flangeon the inner wall part 14a of the bell l4 axially secures the outer wallpart 14b.

The inner and outer wall parts of each section or subsection and theindividual sections and subsections are adhesively bonded to each other.All wall parts are formed of thermoplastic or thermosetting, syntheticresin composition and preferably of cellular or foamed ABS(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer) or AS (acrylonitrile-styrenecopolymer). ABS is conveniently injection molded and has high impactstrength. The inner and outer wall parts of the same section orsubsection may be made of different materials for a preferredcombination of tone quality and appearance. Cellular plastics of theouter and inner wall parts may be expanded to different multiples of theoriginal plastic volume by foaming, and thus differ in bulk density. Ifan instrument is made of more strongly foamed inner wall parts and lessexpanded outer wall parts, the tones produced are soft or mild. Theinverse relationship of the cellular materials produces relatively sharpor shrill tones.

The wall parts of the sections and subsections are 7 formed fromplastics by injection or compression molding techniques. The individualcomponent elements so formed are then fitted together and adhesivelybonded to each other.

The recorder illustrated in FIG. 2 is similar to that described withreference to FIG. 1. and like reference characters are being used forcorresponding elements. The several associated inner and outer wallparts are radially spaced apart to bound respective, annular cavities16c, 18d. 12d, and 14d in the subsections [6, 18, the body 12, and bell14. Each cavity is axially sealed. it would be sufficient. however, toseal only the cavities 16c, 14d at their axially outer ends, and thecavities 16c and 18d where the subsections 16, 18 define the orifice 20band the opening 24. The cavities between the inner and outer wallportions promote resonance in the instrument to produce tones of betterquality than in the instrument of FlG. 1.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is essentially similar in construction tothe above described embodiment and, as such, like reference numerals andcharacters designate corresponding parts and elements. Different fromthe embodiment shown in FIG. 1, the recorder shown in FIG. 2 has aconstruction in which all the inner and outer halves of the body section12, outlet end piece section 14, blowing end subsection 16 andmouthpiece bodysection 18 are radially spaced apart from each other. Asa consequence, generally cylindrical cavities 16c, 18d, 12d and 14d areformed respectively betweenthe halves 16a and 16b, between 18a and 18b,between 12a and 12b and between 14a and 14b, as illustrated. Thesecavities 16c, 18d, 12d and 14d are shown as closed at their ends so asto be isolated from each other. It is, however, permissible that all orsome of these cavities are in communication with each other insofar asthe cavities 16c and 14d formed in the blowing end subsection 16 andoutlet end piece section 14, respectively, are closed at their axiallyouter ends and the cavities 16c and 18d in the blowing end andmouthpiece body subsections l6 and 18, respectively, are closed at theirends defining the opening 24 formed in the inner and outer halves 18aand 18b of the subsection 18. Through provision of the cavities betweenthe inner and outer halves forming the instrument, acoustic resonanceproduced in the instrument can be promoted to a considerable extent withthe result that tones with enhanced quality are produced as compared tothe instrument of the construction shown in FIG. 1 or in conventionalanalogous wind instrument.

Because the wind instrument of the invention has a mouthpiece and bodyconsisting of inner and outer wall parts, the exposed inner and outersurfaces of the instrument are free from sink marks or recesses so thatgood tone quality and pleasing external appearance can be achievedindependently of each other. The instrument is well suited forlarge-scale commercial production.

What is claimed is:

1. A wind instrument comprising a body section having an axis and formedwith an axial bore therethrough, and a mouthpiece attached to one axialend of said body section and formed with a passage communicating withsaid bore, said mouthpiece and said body section having respectivetubular inner wall parts bounding said bore and said passage andrespective tubular outer wall parts enveloping the associated inner wallparts, said wall parts each consisting of plastic and hav ing an innerface and an outer face, the inner faces of said inner wall partsbounding said bore and said passage respectively, the outer faces ofsaid outer wall parts constituting the outer exposed surface of saidinstrument, and the inner faces of said outer wall parts conforminglyengaging the outer faces of said inner wall parts respectively.

2. An instrument as set forth in claim 1, wherein said plastic iscellular.

3. An instrument as set forth in claim 2, wherein the cellular plasticin one of said outer wall parts differs in bulk density from the bulkdensity of the plastic in the associated inner wall part.

4. A wind instrument comprising a body section having an axis and formedwith an axial bore therethrough, and a mouthpiece attached to one axialend of said body section and formed with a passage communicating withsaid bore, said mouthpiece and said body section having respectivetubular inner wall parts bounding said bore and said passage andrespective tubular outer wall parts enveloping the associated inner wallparts, said wall parts each consisting of cellular plastic, the cellularplastic in one of said outer wall parts differing in bulk density fromthe bulk density of the plastic in the associated inner wall part.

5. An instrument as set forth in claim 4, wherein said inner and outerwall parts of said mouthpiece and of said body section respectively areradially spaced from each other so as to define respective annularcavities in said mouthpiece and in saidbody section.

6. An instrument as set forth in claim 5, further comprising meanssealing said cavities from the ambient air.

ciated inner wall part.

1. A wind instrument comprising a body section having an axis and formedwith an axial bore therethrough, and a mouthpiece attached to one axialend of said body section and formed with a passage communicating withsaid bore, said mouthpiece and said body section having respectivetubular inner wall parts bounding said bore and said passage andrespective tubular outer wall parts enveloping the associated inner wallparts, said wall parts each consisting of plastic and having an innerface and an outer face, the inner faces of said inner wall partsbounding said bore and said passage respectively, the outer faces ofsaid outer wall parts constituting the outer exposed surface of saidinstrument, and the inner faces of said outer wall parts conforminglyengaging the outer faces of said inner wall parts respectively.
 2. Aninstrument as set forth in claim 1, wherein said plastic is cellular. 3.An instrument as set forth in claim 2, wherein the cellular plastic inone of said outer wall parts differs in bulk density from the bulkdensity of the plastic in the associated inner wall part.
 4. A windinstrument comprising a body section having an axis and formed with anaxial bore therethrough, and a mouthpiece attached to one axial end ofsaid body section and formed with a passage communicating with saidbore, said mouthpiece and said body section having respective tubularinner wall parts bounding said bore and said passage and respectivetubular outer wall parts enveloping the associated inner wall parts,said wall parts each consisting of cellular plastic, the cellularplastic in one of said outer wall parts differing in bulk density fromthe bulk density of the plastic in the associated inner wall part.
 5. Aninstrument as set forth in claim 4, wherein said inner and outer wallparts of said mouthpiece and of said body section respectively areradially spaced from each other so as to define respective annularcavities in said mouthpiece and in said body section.
 6. An instrumentas set forth in claim 5, further comprising means sealing said cavitiesfrom the ambient air.
 7. An instrument as set forth in claim 4, whereinthe bulk density of the plastic in said one outer wall part is greaterthan the bulk density of said plastic in said associated inner wallpart.